“India is unique in having a highly sophisticated minority rights protection system for its Scheduled Tribes”: Constitutional provisions and their implementation

The highly heterogeneous Adivasi (“original inhabitants”) represent India’s de facto indigenous peoples. De jure, however, they are not recognised as indigenous and are instead designated as Scheduled Tribes in the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. India is unique in having a highly sophisticated minority rights protection system for its Scheduled Tribes, which is, however, … Read more

Revival of interest in aboriginal history: The “Khoe”, descendants of herders who introduced pottery 2000 years ago – Southern Africa

Read the full article by Prof. Andrew B. Smith >> The name ‘Hottentot’, or its Afrikaans shortening ‘Hotnot’, became a disparaging term for people of colour at the Cape. Today we refer to the aboriginal herders of the Cape by the name they would have called themselves: Khoekhoen =’people people’ or ‘real people’ (non-gender specific plural). … Read more

Linguistic diversity and multilingualism – Interviews with Prof. Ganesh Devy

Devy has worked incessantly to establish the linguistic diversity and numeric strength of subaltern cultures in India. In a politically resonant statement during a public lecture last year in Bengaluru, he said the most beloved stories of mainstream Hinduism start in the mouths of Dalits. It is a suta, both charioteer and bard, who speaks … Read more

Empowering tribal youth through education: Seminar on “Nomadic Tribes and their Developmental Scenario” – Tamil Nadu

Amutha Kannan,  The Hindu, COIMBATORE, December 24, 2013 Chakravarthy Karthikeyan, a student of Social Work of PSG College of Arts and Science, has been able to motivate a few Domura youth from a settlement near Gobichettipalayam to take up higher education. This, he believes, is the first of his baby steps in empowering youth belonging to … Read more